Tiltai

There is a wide range of rehabilitation programmes for the blind and visually impaired in Western countries, but these vary greatly in content and application, and no single ‘gold standard’ has been established, despite attempts to set such standards. In Lithuania, the policy for rehabilitation services for the blind and visually impaired began to be implemented in 2017. A qualitative research approach was chosen to determine the need for services and project activities for the blind and visually impaired, and to identify implementation shortcomings. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five blind or visually impaired people and four of their family members. The results of the research revealed that the blind and visually impaired faced complex psychological and social problems before participating in the social rehabilitation programme for the blind. It was found that there is a lack of coordination in the transmission of information between health-care institutions, municipal social institutions and NGOs. Patients are forced to seek information on their own, which reduces accessibility, acceptability, and the effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions. Many of the research participants received services quite late, and, according to the informants, the social rehabilitation programme for the blind had quality shortcomings.

This article analyses the experiences of men who are suffering homelessness. The aim of this article is to identify the main problems of social services and to show their potential development. In today’s Europe, no one can be forced to sleep on the street just because there are no high-quality services that meet human needs. The state must ensure the rights of persons, who are suffering homelessness and to preserve their dignity by providing efficient and high quality social services, because only this kind of services allows to talk about the development of the modern state, shaping and reshaping the model of social services. This research allows to understand the phenomenon of homelessness from the point of view of homeless men and to identify the main problems that hinder to overcome homelessness. This article presents the empirical study, which results showed that social services in Lithuania are based on the material supply, so homeless men have poor access to quality social services. The infrastructure of hostels is not adapted for person with disability; social housing is difficult to obtain because of the long queues; homeless men also have difficulties to access independent living or nursing homes for the elderly.

The aim of this study was to describe family social work through analyzing the roles of social workers. Qualitative research was carried out in three big cities of Lithuania: Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 family social workers. A discursive psychology approach was chosen. Family social workers’ interpretative roles repertoires appear among professional, public and organizational discourses. The results showed that family social workers categorise professional roles in relation to different everyday practices that depend on situated language use in the contexts in which they take place.